TURMOIL
Bratva Fury (Book 2)
Copyright © 2018 Alexi Ferreira
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, any event, occurrence, or incident is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created and thought up from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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NIK 1
RAVEN 2
NIK 3
RAVEN 4
NIK 5
RAVEN 6
NIK 7
RAVEN 8
NIK 9
RAVEN 10
NIK 11
RAVEN 12
NIK 13
RAVEN 14
NIK 15
RAVEN 16
NIK 17
RAVEN 18
NIK 19
RAVEN 20
NIK 1
“Are you ready?” I’ve been trying to get Jade out of the house for the last twenty minutes. Jade’s six-month appointment is in half an hour, and she’s taking her sweet time. The good thing is that Alexey phoned to say that he’s running late; otherwise, if he gets there and his woman isn’t there, he will have my balls.
“Relax, Nik, you guys are always so tense,” she grumbles as she finally walks towards where I’m standing by the door of Alexey, the Bratva Mafia boss, and Jade’s apartment. Since joining the Bratva, my function has always been to extract information from people, and I’m good at it. When people hear my name, they know I mean business, but since the boss found Jade, he asked that I be her bodyguard when there are no interrogations.
I’m not a social person, and at first, I didn’t relish having to babysit her, but with time, she has somehow wiggled herself into my heart. Looking at her now, I wonder how a woman like her accepted someone who leads a life like we do. I have killed more men than I can count in the name of the Bratva. I can’t think of ever bringing someone into this life.
“What’s wrong with you today? You’re grumpier than normal,” Jade grumbles as she steps into the lift. I grunt in response as I pull her handbag from her shoulder so that I can carry it. Damn women always carry all their belongings in their handbags. “You know, you put out this untouchable mean front, but deep, deep down, you’re a softy. I’m not going to go into labour suddenly because of carrying a little handbag like that.”
Since the day Jade met me, she has tried to soften me up in the most bizarre ways. She insists that there is a good man under all my outward meanness. The thing is, she’s wrong. There is no softness in me anymore. The Bratva took me in when I was just a kid. I killed my first man when I was ten. I became the one they called when they needed information extracted from someone. If it weren’t for the Bratva, I would have died in the streets of Russia. I have them to thank for being here.
I have killed many men, but only one changed my life. Four years ago, I was tasked by our Pakhan, Alexey and Vlad’s father, with killing the son of one of our rivals. After sending his son home in pieces to make a statement, the Pakhan sent me here to South Africa to help Alexey and to get me away from any repercussions that might arise.
Once, I thought that maybe I could find the happiness Alexey has found, but after a few months, I had to give it up. Being the person I am, I have a lot of enemies, enemies waiting for any opportunity to strike. I will not have a weakness. I will not allow for anyone to be in my life and then suffer because of me.
Therefore, any woman I have is for one night and one night only. Stepping out of the lift, I look around before guiding Jade to my black Mustang. I open the door and help her in, placing her bag on the floor in front of her before closing the car door. Looking down at my wristwatch, I see that I have twenty minutes to get Jade to her appointment on time. I’m surprised the boss hasn’t called me yet.
Getting in, I glance at Jade to make sure she’s buckled in before I start the car and make my way out of the underground parking. I nod to the two men standing by the entrance before I turn into traffic. “Is Alexey going to be on time?” Jade asks with a frown.
“Da.”
“Is there anything going on again?” Jade asks suddenly. I glance at her and see her eyes trained on me. Only now do I notice the worry on her face. When Jade first met Alexey, we were at war with the Catalonian mafia. Because of this, one of Jade’s closest friends was seriously injured. Since then, I sense a fear in Jade that wasn’t there before, and even though the boss tries to keep our dealings from her, she is sensitive to the things around her.
“Niet, why?”
“Alexey came home late last night, and then this morning, he was tense. He tried to hide it, but I know something is bothering him.” She looks out of her window. Last night, the men brought in one of our men who needed some persuasion. Alexey suspected that he had been leaking information about our armament pick-ups and drop-offs.
Dimitry, our security specialist, found incoming text messages that incriminated him, but Alexey wanted to make sure and brought him to me for questioning. I spent most of my evening extracting every single piece of information from him. I’m sure that’s why Alexey was tense. Finding out that one of your own men is a rat will do that to someone. When I was finished with him, I had the information the boss needed. I sent him a text in the morning confirming his suspicions, and maybe that’s why Jade found him to be distant.
“All is good, don’t worry.” I’m not a man of many words, and I know that sometimes women need more than what I can give them. My hand tightens on the steering wheel when a memory of Raven explodes in my head. No matter how I fight, how many women I take to my bed, I can’t delete her from my mind. I know that she became my obsession in the short time we were together, and soon, she will become my weakness.
It has been three years, and still I think of her every day. I even drove past her apartment a few times until I realised she had moved. I nearly killed a man entering her apartment, rage blinding me until I found out he was the new tenant. I know she must hate me for what I did, but it was for her own good. She didn’t know what type of man I am, and no matter how much I warned her that I wasn’t a good man, she always chose to see the best in me.
My heart tightens when I think of what could have been but will never be. I know that I will never find a woman who can fulfil me like Raven did. She calmed my mind, made me forget the evil around me. Her goodness lightened the darkness in me like nothing else ever could, and that’s why I could never let anything touch her.
I park the car, noticing that Alexey isn’t here yet. Looking at the time, I see there’s still a few minutes. Stepping out of the car, I look around to make certain that everything is secure. I will never take a chance where Jade is concerned, especially now that she is carrying. Opening the door for her, I help her out.
“Nik,” she says as she looks up at me. “If Alexey can’t make it, will you go in with me?”
I know Jade has been scared about her pregnancy. She confessed to me a few days ago but asked that I not say anything to Alexey. “Da,”
I answer, seeing the relief on her face as I guide her towards the door. I’m about to open the door, when it swings open and a woman carrying a child crashes against my chest. Automatically, my arms lift around her waist to hold her up.
“Oh.” The woman gasps, long auburn hair obscuring the woman’s face. “I’m so sorry. I di—”
I tense when I first hear her husky voice, and then her hazel eyes clash with mine. I see the colour leave her cheeks when she realizes who is holding her. I feel a small hand on my chin and look down to see the same eyes as mine looking at me. My heart starts to race, and I tense when the kid smiles at me. A dimple the same as the one I have appears.
“Raven,” I murmur, still not believing that she’s before me, that I’m touching her, but suddenly she’s wrenching herself away.
She steps around me, and I see her eyes widen when she sees Jade. “Excuse me,” she mutters as she hurriedly starts to make her way outside.
“Nik?” Jade asks with a raised eyebrow as she looks over her shoulder at Raven. I’m standing frozen as I see the woman I was thinking about just minutes before walking away from me, and with a kid who looked very much like me.
“What are you both doing out here?” Alexey calls as he walks towards us. I was so enthralled that I didn’t even see Alexey approach, Andrei right behind him. Before he can say anything else, I step around Jade and hurry after Raven. I hear Alexey say something, but I don’t pay attention, as the only thing on my mind now is to talk to Raven.
I see her bending over as she places the kid in a car seat. Looking over at the car, I frown. This car is a piece of shit. She shouldn’t be driving around in something that looks like it will break down at any moment.
“Raven.”
Her head snaps around as she looks at me. “I don’t want to talk to you,” she mumbles as she looks back at what she was doing.
“Well, you’re going to have to talk to me.” On one hand, I’m hoping that I’m wrong, because if this kid is mine, all my efforts were for nothing. There is no way I can let her go again, especially if she has had my child. On the other hand, I can’t think that she would have had a child with someone else. The thought makes me see red.
“Isn’t your wife going to find it strange you came after me?” she snaps as she closes the car door and moves towards the driver’s door. Before she can slip into the car, I take her arm and swing her around to look at me.
“She’s not my wife. I’m her bodyguard, and she’s with her husband at the moment.” I see her beautiful eyes widen before her cheeks fill with colour.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter.” She tries to pull her arm away, but I’m not going to let her get away from me without knowing where she’s living and knowing if I have a son. “Let go of me,” she mutters.
“Not until we talk.”
“It’s a bit late for that, don’t you think?” she argues as she glares up at me. An overwhelming feeling of longing overtakes me, and I don’t think before I’m lowering my head and taking her lips in a possessive kiss that leaves us both breathless. She first tries to pull away, but soon is kissing me back with a passion that brings back sweet memories.
When I finally lift my head, I see that she looks dazed. She blinks as she gazes up at me. “Why did you do that?” she whispers. I notice her body tensing as she comes down from our kiss.
“For three years, I’ve wanted to do that,” I confess.
“Oh, really, is that why you left and never came back?” she asks with a raised eyebrow, her sassiness making me want to kiss her all over again.
“There were things that you didn’t know, don’t know, things that I was trying to protect you from,” I reveal.
“Well, it’s a bit late now, Nik,” she says angrily as she tries to pull away again. “You just left. We should have talked about this then. What do you want now, anyway?”
“Is he mine?” My heart races as I wait for her answer. I can see the kid in the back seat through the window as he plays with his seatbelt. I feel her whole body tensing at my question, and I know she doesn’t want to talk about this.
“Let me go, Nikolai.” I know she’s angry when she reverts to my full name.
“I have a right to know, Raven,” I snap.
“You have no rights. You gave up that right when you left. All you said before you were gone was, ‘I can’t be with you anymore.’ After everything, that’s all you said to me.”
“You would have been in danger if I stayed,” I grunt.
“So, what has changed? If you hadn’t seen me today, you would never have come looking for me.” I see a sheen of tears brightening her eyes. My heart tightens knowing that I hurt her, but there was no other way.
“You’re my weakness. In my kind of life, weaknesses get you killed,” I roar, frustrated with this situation. My outburst must have frightened the kid, because he starts to cry. “Fuck,” I grunt as I let go of Raven’s arm so that she can appease him.
“It’s okay, Luke. We’re just talking, baby.” The kid quietens as Raven stretches out to the floor in the back and pulls up a fluffy dog that she hands to him. She stands and turns, looking up at me. “I have to go,” she states as she sits in the driver’s seat. I squat down next to her seat, keeping the door open.
“Raven, tell me,” I plead.
She leans her head back on the seat and closes her eyes as she sighs. I see the strain that this conversation is having clearly defined on her face. “Yes,” she whispers as she opens her eyes and looks back at me. “Yes, Nik, Luke is yours.”
I know this was all a surprise today, but I thought that I would be ready for her answer. Well, I was wrong. Her reply leaves me gutted. The anger at myself that fills me for leaving when she most needed me, at not being there when my son was born and having missed his first years, leaves me devastated.
“Now that you know, please . . . let me leave.” Her voice breaks, but she quickly composes herself.
“We . . .” I clear my throat, trying to lighten the constriction that I feel around my throat and my heart. “We need to talk. I want to get to know my son. Where do you live?”
“Don’t do this, Nik,” she pleads in a shaky voice
“Where, Raven?” I ask.
“In the same apartments, but I moved to number two on the ground floor,” she murmurs, her shoulders dropped in dejection.
“I will be there at seven tonight,” I state. “I have things I need to tell you. I know it’s too late, but you need to know why I left.” She lifts her sad eyes to mine and nods. I stand and step back, closing the door of the car. I look into the back seat and see Luke looking at me. The tightness around my heart constricts as I look at a small image of me. I continue looking at him until Raven pulls away and I’m standing in the parking space alone.
Lifting my hands to my hair, I pull at it, feeling some comfort in the pain. I’m going to have to find a way to keep my woman and son safe. My life has just overgone a full circle in the last half an hour, and instead of feeling defeated that I will have a weakness in my life, I feel hope that maybe I will be able to find the happiness that Alexey found with Jade.
I snap out of my thoughts as I feel my phone vibrate. “Da,” I answer without seeing who the caller is.
“We’re ready to leave. Are you going to grace us with your presence?” Alexey asks sarcastically.
“Da, be there in two,” I reply as I make my way back towards the entrance to the doctor’s. I see Andrei step out as I arrive, Alexey and Jade right behind him. I thought that the boss would be upset that I had walked off, but he seems happy. Whatever happened at the doctor has put him in a good mood.
The heaviness in my soul intensifies when I think that I missed all of this. I never got to see my woman pregnant with my child. “Nik, it’s a boy,” Jade reveals happily. I see Alexey’s arm tighten around her shoulders as he smiles down at her.
“Congratulations.”
“I have a meeting; take Jade home so she can rest, as we’re going out
tonight to celebrate.” I nod at Alexey just as Jade starts to grumble about having to rest all the time and not being old. He quietens her with a blistering kiss that has Andrei nodding at me in amusement. In the last eight months Alexey has known Jade, he has changed, becoming more human, or as human as we can be in our life.
“Now go with Nik, malysh. I will see you later,” he says as he leaves. I guide Jade to the car and drive us home.
“So, are you going to tell me?” Jade asks as she looks at me.
“Niet,” I grunt.
“He’s yours, isn’t he?”
I sigh, knowing she’s not going to give up. “Da.”
“Did you know?”
“Niet.”
“I’m sorry, Nik,” she murmurs as she turns towards the window. I admire Jade for her strength, her perseverance, her kindness. She went through a rough patch when she met Alexey, but she has risen above it and persevered. I wonder if Raven can be as strong as Jade, if she can take a man like me and accept what I am.
RAVEN 2
I drive slowly towards home, my hands shaking. I can hear Luke talking his baby talk in the back, but I can’t muster the energy to talk to him. Seeing Nik again after so long has gutted me. I used to pray for him to return, thinking that he would come to his senses. I couldn’t believe that he would turn his back on me after what we had, but he did. After all this time, when I thought I would never see him again, I don’t know what to think or even what to feel. I know that I still love Nik—I don’t think I will ever stop—but I don’t think that I will ever be able to forgive him for the way he walked away from me.
My heart is still racing from the kiss that we shared. The feelings that I thought I had concluded are still there. Nik and I had an explosive sexual relationship. We were volcanic together; that’s why when he came to see me that last day, I was so devastated. I never understood why he would walk away from me. He made me feel like I was the only woman in the world, and then he just turned his back.
TURMOIL: Bratva Fury (book 2) Page 1